POTD: The S&W Model 422 – Smith’s Run at the Plinker Crown
Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here we have Smith & Wesson trying to crash a party Ruger had been hosting for years. This is the Model 422, S&W’s budget .22 plinker, and these two are first-year guns from 1987.
By the mid-1980s the affordable rimfire pistol market belonged to Ruger’s Mark series, with the Browning Buck Mark in the mix too. Smith had walked away from that corner back in 1966 when it dropped the Model 46, so the 422 was the company climbing back in after twenty years on the sidelines. The plan was straightforward: a light aluminum frame, a blued steel slide, a simple single-action blowback action, and a price around $250, roughly half what their premium Model 41 target pistol cost.
The clever bit is the barrel. It sits low in the frame, right above the trigger guard, fixed in place and held by a barrel nut. That low bore line cuts down on muzzle flip, and the threaded setup makes it a natural host for a suppressor. Folks tended to call it a poor man’s Model 41, which is about right. It never knocked Ruger off the throne, and it cost more to build than the price really allowed, so Smith dropped it in 1996. Underrated little plinker, though.
Most of our POTDs utilize images from our friends at Rock Island Auction Company, the premier firearms auction in the United States. Take some time to browse their current auctions – who knows, maybe you’ll find a piece of history to take home!
“Two First Year Production Smith & Wesson Model 422 Semi-Automatic Pistols with Boxes.” Rock Island Auction, www.rockislandauction.com/detail/5032/356/two-first-year-production-smith-wesson-model-422-pistols. Accessed 3 July 2026.
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